Reasons for and against Devolution via the 13th Amendment
Recently an article by former diplomat Nanda Godage supporting the devolution of power to the North under the 13th Amendment appeared in another daily. My article is an endorsement of Mr; Godage’s suggestion as it is also an attempt towards peace and reconciliation. But there is a seemingly controversial aspect to my point of view which may not go down well with many, particularly the politicians and ultra nationalists.
The need for power sharing with the Northern/Eastern Province Tamils arose from a definite demand from our Tamil brothers as could be inferred from the many attempts made by them in this regard resulting in pacts made with former prime ministers of our country. After that there were several All Party Conferences and Experts’ Committees including the LLRC which has made recommendations for devolution of power. But there was no such demand made from regional units in the rest of the country after independence.
A brief summary of the contents of a previous article I wrote on this subject will help the reader. A study of the budgets and the actual expenditures of the Provincial Councils (PCs) threw up some interesting and telling facts. Over the years the Capital or Development expenditure (CE) had averaged 12 per cent of the total expenditure. Of the 88 per cent recurrent expenditure (RE) about 80-85 per cent was devoted to salaries and allowances to the staff of PCs, elected members and their temporary political appointees like private/ media/coordinating/public relations secretaries and the staff of local bodies. The balance of the RE was used for overheads like administration, power, maintenance, grants to local bodies and consumable supplies. To the amount available for the meagre CE allocation should be added the allocations of Rs.3.5 million given to each of the elected members of the PCs. In the case of CE a fair portion is spent on acquisition of equipment and furniture for offices, schools and small hospitals, vehicles for the Governors, Ministers, their permanent Secretaries and even the private/ coordinating secretaries, new buildings and improvements and projects of a commercial nature expected to augment PC’s income. As prestige and a show of power ranks high in the scale of values of politicians, obtaining official vehicles and official bungalows and furniture take high priority over other needs for development.
Apart from the expenditure incurred by the PCs, the central government too spends a large portion of its budget in the area of each PC through the central government’s budgetary allocation to all ministries of the government in terms of the functions not devolved. Members of Parliament too are given an allocation of Rs 5 million each to be spent on works of capital nature. But this allocation is spent by the Government Agent, now called the District Secretary. It is likely that capital works funded by the centre and the PCs do not get properly coordinated by a central authority. Land is a function so far not properly devolved though it is a devolved subject under the 13th Amendment. In respect of some of the other devolved functions like agriculture, education, health, etc there is much confusion and overlap resulting in a power struggle between the centre and the PCs in addition to boundary disputes.
Due to this malaise much valuable time is wasted by officials of the PCs and the central government in resolving conflict situations. This is particularly so with respect to the functions of agriculture, education
There is a very strong likelihood of the Tamil diaspora repatriating their foreign earnings to the North once political power is devolved. This means there will be large investment in the North. Like many of us who have suffered the extremes of weather overseas only to yearn to return to the motherland these expatriate member too would want to return here once they are assured in their own minds of being part of the mainstream and not being second class citizens.
and health. For example in large departments like Education and Health transfers, promotions and disciplinary matters unduly occupies the time of officials which could have been productively spent if there weren’t two masters to be served by the bureaucrats.
Staffing pattern in the PC outfits is the same for all PCs for both the housekeeping functions and development oriented activities. There are officials to serve the offices of the Governor, the Chief Minister etc as shown in the Table above. The large majority of the staff grade officers belong to the All Island Services.
In the case of the number of positions shown above, the figures are based on statistics of 1999 with the minimum incremental addition made for the purpose of this article. Some of the positions of staff and clerical/technical grades would have existed even prior to the PC system came into effect.
Total number of positions is 821. Multiplying this figure by an average (hypothetical) monthly salary of Rs.25,000 per person gives a monthly salary bill of Rs. 20.5 million. This is equal to an annual salary bill of Rs.246.3 million. For the current eight PCs the annual salary bill will be close to Rs 2 billion. When the rest of the expenditure is added the total avoidable commitment will be close to Rs 2.2 billion (avoidable if there are no PCs). When the salaries and allowances of elected PC members are added the annual salary figure of the eight PCs could reach Rs.2.5 billion. It should not be forgotten that there will be a massive saving in not having to hold islandwide PC elections every five years.
The positions and the institutions like those of the Governor, Ministers, Secretaries, Public Service Commission, etc. did not exist in the nine Provinces before 1987. One can imagine the colossal expenses that the country has to bear in having to meet the political demands of India for devolution and power sharing. Previously the Kachcheri system under the Government Agent and his Assistants at the level of the Electorate and political leadership actualized through the District Coordinating Committees worked smoothly to deliver services to the public and other interest groups. Then there were the Regional and District Offices of the many large departments to handle activities in the periphery. Under the devolution dispensation after 1987 the work of these regional and district offices has been delegated to the PCs while at the same time the central government departments continue to handle functions even where they have been devolved. This is particularly evident with regard to the functions of land, education and health where national schools and large hospitals and land work are administered by the central government departments and the District Secretariats.
Regarding most of the devolved functions, the PCs have to operate within the framework of the country wide policy decisions made by the central government. Even with regard to housekeeping matters like transfers and promotions of officers of the All Island Services there can be confusion and problems of coordination. To take a simple example, when there were excess supplies of drugs in large hospital the excess was sent across to smaller hospitals. This activity was handled by the Regional Office of Health. But now the large national or general hospitals are part of the central government which would not have the inclination to coordinate with the health authorities of the PCs. Recently a former Agricultual Extension Officer had complained that due to the PC system the role of the former Agricultural Instructor has changed to that of a Grama Niladhari and attributed, inter alia,the causes of the onset of kidney disease to the failure to give proper advice to our farmers in the NCP.
So the case against devolution rests not only on the eight or nine fold rise in expenditure of recurrent expenditure to pay salaries of those positions whose raison d’etre is to attend to some house keeping functions to keep the PC machinery going in order to enable them to spend less than 12 per cent of the truncated capital budget for development but also on the power sharing problems due to boundary disputes, overlap of activities and the inherent confusion in the system.
But this does not vitiate the need and the demand for devolution to those who had been agitating for power sharing initially by peaceful means and later by violence and acts of terrorism. With the end to the war in May 2009 the strength of the demand has not diminished. And India and many other countries of the world see the merit of power sharing with the minorities through devolution as the way to achieve reconciliation.
The alleged fear of a resurgence of agitation for Eelam or a separate state should not deter the majority community from devolving power. The presence of a strong army in the North as a preventive measure cannot be overemphasized. Besides India would not wish to encourage secession as it could trigger a ripple effect towards secession of the Dravidian population within its own borders. How far power over the control of land should be devolved needs to be negotiated. At least land will have to remain under the supervision of a separate Land Commission to forestall abuse of power. Even in the case of Police powers there can be both a local Police Force operating under a Police Commission to prevent political interference like in the case of the Land Commission.
Culturally there is so much affinity between Hindus and Buddhists, each religious group worshipping common deities and adhering to the common practices of the occult sciences. A Geneticist told me that there is greater consanguinity or DNA affinity between Low Country Sinhalese and Northern Tamils than there is between the former and the Kandyan Sinhalese. This may be due to the successive wave of migration from South India to the coastal belt of Sri Lanka over the years.
There is a very strong likelihood of the Tamil diaspora repatriating their foreign earnings to the North once political power is devolved. This means there will be large investment in the North. Like many of us who have suffered the extremes of weather overseas only to yearn to return to the motherland these expatriate member too would want to return here once they are assured in their own minds of being part of the mainstream and not being second class citizens.
A retooled and reshaped Northern Province will, to my mind, serve as a model for the rest of the country to emulate by which stage there will be a demand from other regions for power sharing. Each such region or province should make out a case, as in Zero based Budgeting, to justify its demand.
A certain degree of faith and trust is a prerequisite for this so far elusive grail of reconciliation to materialize. If we only take our memories back to the good deeds done by the likes of Ponnambalam Ramanathan, Raju Coomaraswamy, Kanthiah Vaithianathan and Lakshman Kadiragamar on behalf of this country bearing in mind that the Northern Tamils have a better genetic and cultural compatibility with the Sinhalese, Moors and Burghers than with the South Indians the case for devolution in the North can be fully justified. As for the rest of the country the recipe should be more decentralization and a stronger local government system.
As in my previous article on this subject in 1999, the PC system is a politicians’ paradise for earning commissions and dispensing jobs for their relations and party men. How politicians earn large commissions was brought home to everyone with the collapse of the Golden Key Finance Co. where the forced withdrawal of an investment of one minister amounting to Rs.400 million resulted in many genuine investors being rendered penniless overnight. If one minister could have earned so much, contributing also Rs 60 million to his party funds as reported in the press one can imagine the magnitude of commissions illicitly earned by the multitude of ministers in the whole system. Earning commissions boomerangs not on them but on the tax paying public as the extra costs of contracts and services supplied would have been passed on the public.I bet my bottom dollar that the Northerners will do a damn good job of governance in their conclave without any more ties with Eelamism, worthy of emulation by the rest of the country. Give them a chance.(